Neap Tide
by ncfan
Summary: -Kakashi x Mei- Commiseration, Terumi Mei style.


**Characters**: Kakashi, Mei**  
Summary**: Commiseration, Terumi Mei style.**  
Pairings**: KakaMei**  
Author's Note**: I've seen a couple of other KakaMei's out there, and I have to say, it's one of the more brilliant pairing ideas I've seen. I hope you all like the way I portray Mei.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

She has her cheek resting against her hand, the elbow of her arm resting on her desk, with an appraising expression suffusing that fine-featured, chiseled face. The one jade green eye left visible is sparkling slightly, bemused and curious. "So." The Mizukage's voice is oddly suggestive, though whether that's for any particular reason or just force of habit Kakashi doesn't know. "I understand you have some news for me?"

Before he had a chance to meet her up-close and personal, Kakashi heard a trio of Mist nin saying that their Mizukage was poised to take the unofficial title of "World's Most Beautiful Woman" from Tsunade. Though he was at first skeptical, upon meeting her face to face, Kakashi has a disloyal thought and thinks that they're probably right. This woman is absolutely exquisite to look upon. She reeks of sexuality in such a magnitude as to match Tsunade, and exudes sensuality in a way that the Hokage could never quite manage. Terumi Mei looks like something straight out of a pornographic magazine, but classier—and less exposed, though only just.

_They don't make 'em like that in Konoha._

Kakashi stands to attention, hands behind his back but still managing to look like he's slouching, and nods. "Yes ma'am. I have reports on troop movements and intelligence reports that I understand were to be relayed to you." He draws the scroll from his flak jacket and steps forward to place it on her desk.

Mei flashes a smile, sweet and coy, up at him as she leans forward to take the scroll into her finely manicured hands. As she unrolls the scroll and reads it, the auburn-haired Mizukage nods approvingly. "This is very good, quite thorough." A teasing note enters her voice as her visible eye against turns to Kakashi. "It's almost impossible to believe that someone from the Leaf wrote it."

By that, she means Yamanaka Inoichi, and Kakashi can tell this is a test. Even if she isn't his direct superior, she's still a kage and he can't contradict her or defend his village without coming across as disrespectful anyway.

Seeming to sense his conflict, Mei rolls up the scroll and places it in her desk. "But I would expect no less from the venerable Yamanaka Inoichi," she remarks absently. Sweeping to her feet, she removes herself from her desk and goes to sit in the windowsill—it's just wide enough to fit her comfortably, a tall, narrow window. They are in Kiri, and it is as usual raining, and the gloom of the rain seems to permeate her office, with its deep blue-gray draperies and the two incense-burning lamps that are making Kakashi just a little light-headed.

Mei shoots a glance at him, no longer coy but just a little bit of a mask. "You can sit down, you know." She nods to the chair sitting in front of her desk. "I don't expect you to stand at attention all the time, Kakashi-san."

Feeling more than a little uncomfortable letting down his guard in what was recently an enemy village, Kakashi does, gingerly, sit down in the thinly cushioned armchair.

Mei smiles gently. "There, that's better, isn't it?"

Clearly sensing a trap but having no way of knowing how to get out of it, Kakashi winces and squeezes his eyes tightly before answering. "Yes ma'am."

Her smile widens and becomes overtly coquettish, with Mei batting her eyelashes and running an elegant hand through her long hair. "Comfortable?" she asks with a noticeably husky tone of voice.

Kakashi gapes at her until Mei's composure finally cracks and she bursts into a peal of high-pitched, silvery laughter, tipping her head back and hugging her sides. This just leads him to gape some more. He doesn't think he's ever heard a kage laugh like this, not even Minato—God knows Tsunade's laughter is always strictly derisive. "Oh, God," Mei finally stops laughing enough to speak, wiping tears from her eyes—both eyes are visible know, matching each other in terms of jade green. "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.

"The "seductive" bit is something I do relatively well on missions or in battle—good way to rattle enemy's cages—but I can't do it in play with a straight face." Mei closes her eyes and smiles cheerily, and Kakashi can guess that for all that people seem to think that she's older than she's letting on, it's probably the reverse, exactly, and that she may well be quite young.

Mei grows more serious, the eye not hidden by her bangs staring him down intently. "I understand that you are the former sensei of one Uchiha Sasuke, Kakashi-san?"

The wince that goes over Kakashi's face is more painful this time, leaving a stab in his chest. "Yes, I am."

"Ah," Mei replies gingerly. She steeples her hands with her fingers intertwined to let her chin rest on it, staring out abstractedly at the rain—before fixing Kakashi in the gaze of one jade green eyes again. "I tried to melt his face when he gate-crashed the Kage summit. I hope you don't mind."

_Did she really just say that_? Kakashi supposes he can be forgiven if he does a double take. He mutters something nearly inaudible about not having much room to complain, since he hasn't been Sasuke's sensei for a long time.

The smile that grows on Mei's face is sympathetic, and it makes Kakashi's blood burn. "It's hard, I know," she murmurs gently. "Watching someone fade away from you. It's a bit like neap tide. They're still there, but in a way, they're not, not anymore. And no matter how much you wish there was something you did but didn't do, you can't go back. You _can't_ do those things you wish you had done."

She sounds as though she's speaking from personal experience.

And Kakashi realizes that she's speaking of the Yondaime Mizukage.

A hand reaches over to press on top of his, and Mei's still smiling—_She's almost always smiling_, Kakashi notes—when her heavily accented voice rings clear across the dark office. "But you can't blame yourself, you know. There's enough blame to go around for everyone, and you have enough on your plate, I'm sure. Am I right?"

Kakashi nods numbly.

Now it's a soft, gentle laugh echoing across the office. "And it's nice to have someone to commiserate with, I suppose."

He can't argue with logic like that.


End file.
